Sponsor Spotlight

Umpires

Umpires are a critical aspect of any baseball league, and unfortunately in many programs, an overlooked one. Lakeland City Baseball has for years worked hard to retain a quality group of umpires for our regular and post-season games, some of which have decades of
experience and many of those years with LCB.

Alongside these veterans are an eager group of younger
men and women learning from the senior members. This is by design. We are in the business of developing players, developing managers and coaches – why not develop umpires? Many of these young
people go on to umpire at the high school and college levels, and that’s a good thing.
Some of the younger umpires are graduates of LCB!

Umpires enjoy working LCB games. That is because we as a league demand respect of them from coaches, players and fans alike. They are appointed by the league to be responsible for the conduct of the game in accordance with
LCB Rules, Regulations and Policies, and for maintaining discipline and order on (and sometimes off) the playing field. They also have authority to rule on any points not specifically covered in the official rules. All people involved in the game, including fans, must understand that the league will respect and back up the umpire’s properly made decisions on the field.

You might have heard the phrase “in the umpire’s opinion…”. One of the enduring aspects of baseball is that it is a game of gray areas, where decisions are based on the opinion, or
judgement, of the person in charge. The nature of the game requires that umpires be given the authority to make judgement calls based on their observations on the field. Therefore their judgement calls on such things as balls and strikes, fair or foul, safe or out, are final and cannot be overturned. Issues not involving a judgement call, such as a rule interpretation, can be reviewed by means of a protest, and the league has a mechanism for that. Thankfully, the vast majority of
those cases are resolved on the field making protests unnecessary.

So, the umpires are in charge on the field. Please remember:

to show them the respect they are due.

they are the interpreters of the rules on the field.

to thank them for their service to the league.

If you or someone you know would like to be an LCB
umpire, please send a message to our Umpire Coordinator by
clicking on the Contact button at the top of this page.